


Interlude V

by hoc_voluerunt



Series: SPQR [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece & Rome, Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Alternate Universe - Historical, Ancient Rome, Animal Sacrifice, Asexuality, Explicit Sexual Content, Fever, Fire, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Latin, M/M, Oral Sex, Reading Aloud, Sherlock Holmes on the Asexuality Spectrum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-22 01:31:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 13,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1571000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoc_voluerunt/pseuds/hoc_voluerunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the danger in Rome having grown too great, Vannus and Celatus retreat to safety at one of the Cornelii’s villas near Arretium. There, their world contracts: two men, far from the world, and hurtling very fast towards something like love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Latin translations in mouseover text, or in [this post](http://hoc-voluerunt.livejournal.com/39859.html).

            They rode throughout the day, until well after the early fall of night. When finally they stopped, the horses were foaming and panting, and Celatus was too exhausted even to complain about Vannus’ choice of grounds – a mere flat stretch of grass and dirt tucked away in a dip below the level of the road – when Vannus lifted him from his horse, and helped him stagger down to where they could camp. He gathered wood and tied the horses with long ropes to a lonely sapling, and unloaded their meagre possessions and many blankets, as Celatus sat motionless and staring, with a murmured “Mercurialis will have the pearl by now.” Vannus lit a fire, though they had no food to eat, and laid out their bedrolls, and helped Celatus to lie down with weary hardship, and the man was asleep even before Vannus had draped two blankets over his curled length, lying on his side with his face to the fire and his back to the road.

            Vannus wrapped one blanket around his own shoulders and sat alert, with his sword across his knees.

            Night fell, truly and completely, with a thousand thousand stars above, more than were ever visible among the smoke and brick of Rome, though Vannus could not fathom from them the signs and advice Mykale would have read. Instead, he sat awake, and watched the road, stretching far ahead and behind, as well as the fields around them, and an oak-filled grove nothing more than a dark blot on the horizon, and where Celatus’ mouth had fallen open by just a fraction as he slept unknowing through the night. It was the first Vannus had truly seen of him in such a state – still and silent, like death but for the innocence upon his features, and the pink in his cheeks, and the breath which shifted his breast beneath his covering against the winter night; and, had he not been exhausted and unnerved and alert for any sound, he might perhaps have looked upon the moment and seen upheaval in Celatus’ closed and unmoving eyes.

            As it was, only four times in the night did Vannus’ mind register something in particular, and each time was when a horse sped past on the road above, or a creature stirred the grass and shrubs too near the light and warmth of the fire.

            In the morning, Vannus watched the dawn bloom upon his right, and rose on stiff limbs so that the light reached his face over the ridge where the road had been laid down. He roused the horses, and repacked their belongings, and, as the sun blazed its winter pale, woke Celatus with a gentle hand and a stern voice.

            “We need to keep moving.”

            Celatus, without thought or word or any sign of understanding, levered himself up onto his horse, and they rode on.

 

            The second night, they slept in the stable of a farmer’s cottage, and were given water and food and the guarantee of safety in the night. Vannus, no stranger to bedding on straw, had expected Celatus to complain; but the fatigue of riding with hardly a pause, atop his recent injuries, and with not enough food and water to cover two days, had apparently cowed him, and he lay down in the empty stall with only a murmur, perhaps of complaint, perhaps thanks, or perhaps merely ‘good night’. Vannus crawled in behind him, and curled up so they were back to back, and slept with the familiar ease of utter exhaustion.

 

            They left at dawn, having eaten and replenished their supplies, and after Celatus had paid their host with a generous handful of denarii.

 

            At the end of the third day, Vannus nearly turned aside to make camp; but as he did, Celatus urged his horse ahead, and onto a smaller road which led into the low, surrounding hills.

            “This way,” he called as he went – the only words either of them had exchanged since they’d begun to ride – and Vannus could do naught but follow, and trust that it was the road to the Cornelii’s villa. Even through the darkness of night, Celatus led them on, and, just before midnight, the lights of a large and sprawling household came into view, between hardy winter fields, and through the shadows, Vannus watched as Celatus’ back went weak with relief. They kicked their horses on, though they were weak-kneed already, and when they approached through the elaborate gardens before the villa, they were met by a half-dozen slaves, who helped them dismount, and took their things, and led the horses away to be tended. In the knowledge of their relative safety, Vannus allowed himself to be steered without question: their feet were washed, and their hands, and they were given cooled wine to drink; then Celatus and Vannus were led to separate rooms – the latter far to the back of the house, the other still near the atrium – and put to bed, where they both fell asleep without warning or delay.

 

            Vannus woke with the dawn, and breathed deep and fearful. In the afternoon, he sat on a bench in the atrium and unwrapped the bandages from Celatus’ strained-but-healing wrist. Without looking up, Celatus eventually spoke.

            “ _Adsumus,”_ he said.

            Vannus did not hesitate or halt in his task, but still tended Celatus’ wrist with deft fingers as he replied.

            “ _Quid factus est.”_


	2. Chapter 2

            It was with the reverence of fearful and religious hope that Vannus unrolled his bedclothes from the via Pistoris to reveal their penates. When they emerged, intact and unharmed, he sighed with relief, even though he knew Celatus to be listening from the courtyard outside.

            “Apollo and Fortuna, _thank you...”_

            He had no lararium for the figures and offerings. Celatus’ room, of course, as the spacious main bedroom of the household, he knew, must have a place for the shrine – but he also knew that requesting or demanding the use of it would be a fruitless endeavour. Instead, Vannus, converted one of the shelves in his little guest’s room to the task, and prayed that it would be enough.

            He sacrificed one of the estate’s oxen that day to Apollo: in thanks, and just to be sure.

 

            In the days after their flight from the city, the villa remained dull and echoing. The tensions and perils of the coup had left them without breath, and when finally they had made it to a kind of safety, it was after more hardship than Vannus had seen in months, and more than Celatus had ever had to endure. They paced the corridors and courtyards, lined with columns and paintings on walls, and barely spoke for those interminable times, as if at any moment, if they began, they would be cut off by violent crowds and sword-brandishing men. Eventually, Celatus took Vannus into the unlit rooms near the peristyle, filled to the brim with books and scrolls, and in the knowledge of his illiteracy; after this, their days were filled, but with arguments and sighs and furrowed brows, so that the frustration on both their parts threatened the peace of the few dozen slaves who still milled about and, gradually, their irritations overtook those of Rome.

 

            They slept in separate rooms for a fortnight, until Vannus’ shouts could be heard by Celatus even from the atrium. After this, they dragged a spare bedframe into Celatus’ overlarge room, and Vannus slept there, in the hope that another’s presence might calm his sleeping mind.

            The third time Celatus woke to Vannus’ gasps and moans of terror, or his body as still as death from some inscrutable threat, the _nobilis_ physically pulled his friend into his own huge bed, and damned his protests.

            Their world contracted. From the sprawling of Rome, they’d been reduced to a villa, and from there, their haunts receded to the libraries, gardens, bedroom, and self-contained bath to one side of the house. The slaves let them be, and attended to their duties with ease around the two quietly-conjoining figures.

 

            The first time Celatus’ hand fell upon Vannus’ back – to steer him toward the baths one afternoon – Vannus stiffened, and a short breath hissed through his nose in shock. Celatus stepped back, and his hand dropped away, but Vannus shook his head and attempted a smile, and said: “I only thought you were going to profess my citizenship again.”

            His voice was light, but his dark eyes spoke of a weight beyond endurance.

 

            The ennui struck in March.

            In all honesty, Celatus had expected to fall into it by the third week of no cases, no stimulus, no data, no puzzles to solve. But there had been Vannus, and lessons in Latin and Greek, and Vannus’ nightmares, stirred from spark to flame by the events in Rome. The sounds of marching legions had begun to drift to the villa on the wind – far enough away that they were not visible but for the dust they raised, but near enough to slip iron into the lower sections of Vannus’ spine. But the time still came when it was a chore for Celatus just to open his eyes to sun and wind, and every word from Vannus’ tongue became a barb inside his skull or a pin in his oversensitive skin. Vannus’ stoic mouth tightened when Celatus snapped, and he sat alone in anger and mourning in the atrium while Celatus’ body refused to stop breathing. His voice was an eternal, strong-bellied murmur, but every offer of help was fruitless, and every reassurance defeated with a thoughtless dismissal. There were, too, days of manic movement, when every fibre of Celatus’ body felt pulled not-quite-taut, and he paced and paced and shouted and twitched, and Vannus retreated to the shadows of the library, or else stood resolutely in the paths of the front garden and gave as good as he got from Celatus’ stinging tongue.

            Then one day, as March dragged on and on, and Celatus oscillated unbearably and uncontrollably between Olympus and Tartarus, Vannus stayed. He followed where Celatus paced and rambled, and when Celatus would rise only to shit, Vannus was with him in the bed, reading or practising his letters, or murmuring quiet words to the penates on the sill opposite.

 

            In April, Vannus spent a week walking the countryside, taking with him a bedroll, a waterskin, and cheese, bread and dried meats in a bag. He carried his sword at his hip, and wore a light leather breastplatebetween tunic and cloak, and left without a word. With no one but the slaves for company, Celatus thought he might go mad, and perhaps he did; for even in the peristyle and back gardens, he always thought he heard a step upon the gravel front paths, and when Vannus returned, unexpected, from his wanderings, with news of another Emperor’s suicide, Celatus dragged him bodily into the house and ignored all the man’s angered protestations, until they were shouting and gesturing, and filling the villa with voice and violence once more, and Celatus grinned like an orgiastic Bacchan mask even as he broke a statuette on marble tiles and Vannus’ fists rose.

            It was on that night that Vannus kissed him, once, in bed – in the dark, and from behind, where Celatus could not see. His new beard brushed the fresh bruises on Celatus’ back, and he told the night “I’m sorry, but I had to get out.”

 

            Celatus watched one of the slaves shave Vannus’ stubble – a razor in another man’s hand against Vannus’ throat – and fumed.

 

            “If you know how to write your own _name –”_

            “It means I know how to write _three very specific words,_ I never learnt how they actually _form together,_ for all I know they could mean nothing at all –”

            “Surely – _surely –”_

            “Celatus _please,_ I am _trying!”_

            “Well then you’re not _trying_ hard enough!”

            “The blame, my friend, does not lie with the pupil, I can assure you –”

            “Oh, so this is _my_ fault?!”

            “Yes! Patently so!”

            “Oh Minerva protect me from idiots...”

            “Apollo protect me from _arrogant swine.”_

 

            By May, Celatus could have died from sheer inaction.

            Vannus’ feet took again to the surrounding country, and he was gone for twelve days before the villa was again bearable.

 

            “Here. A simple boys’ book of grammar shouldn’t tax you too much.”

            Vannus took the proffered scroll, and turned to Celatus with a glare ready in his eyes; but the other man was not looking at him, rather at somewhere indefinite in the corner, with lips that were pursed shut over something he did not want to say, and Vannus licked his lips with a little smile.

            “You know, I can recognise an apology when I’m given one,” he said, towards the table in the little courtyard. Celatus sniffed, and swept off, and murmured as he went, just loud enough for Vannus to hear.

            “I don’t know _what_ you’re talking about…”

 

            The West Wind struck along with June, and Vannus, grinning, dragged Celatus out of the villa and into the lush fields in loose and loose-woven wool. He brightened with the hot, harsh weather, even as his limp returned, and the sharpness in his eyes grew brighter as he spilled Judaean secrets across rich soil until sweat dripped from his brow and he stood yet close to Celatus for comfort. He told of fearlessness and terror, of blood and pain and death; and from such proximity, Celatus could almost feel him quivering, like a wounded dog that might collapse or lash out at any moment; and it was _fascinating._

            A fortnight after, Celatus decided to run experiments on the upper balconies, and though Vannus warned and warned him, he still set one room on fire, and at their evening meal, was met with a worn and wearied face which chided him in a solemn voice he did not understand.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin translations in mouseover text.

            Vannus was abed with fever between June and July. Passing travellers and servants brought news from Rome – Vitellius was in Cremona; Vespasian had been declared emperor in Egypt; the Eastern legions were revolting, and soon there would be yet another new emperor in Rome. But what news was this when Vannus was suffering? He knew what he needed, when he wasn’t hallucinating, and the slaves kept him well; but it was worse still than when he’d gone wandering. Instead of silence, now, the villa rustled like brambles in the winds of a long-past spring as the slaves hurried back and forth with supplies, and Vannus groaned and gasped and cried out in a pain which Celatus was impotent to soothe. He stayed far from the sickbed, sleeping instead in the guest’s quarters, in caution for his health and for his sanity, should Vannus’ fevered eyes meet his and again beg him to beware, in a diseased paradox, while the fever clutched his small and fragile bones.

 

            On the ides of July, they purified their bedroom with vinegar and incense smoke. The day after, Vannus stood without shaking, and Celatus’ knees could not hold his weight for trembling. Before he’d even dressed, Celatus stumbled and fell, and Vannus’ doctor’s eyes fell to assessment even as Celatus sat on the floor below the level of the mattress and gasped:

             _“Me amas?”_

            Vannus looked at him from aslant across the room, belt still in hand; but there was no sweat on Celatus’ brow, and his eyes were murky not with fever but with a dampened realisation.

             _“Immo,”_ he said in an undertone, the hush of dawn upon his breath, _“te unum. Te unum in Italia derelicta video, et scio, et amo.”_

            Celatus nodded, and said nothing, with his eyes upon the floor. Vannus’ shoulders were languid in the morning dark, and his voice was like the dusk.

             _“Iam scivisti.”_

             _“"Non scivi me scivisse.”_

            There was silence; and then the pad of bare feet. Vannus’ belt fell, abandoned, on top of the mattress, then his efficient hands were beneath Celatus’ elbows and around his ribs, pulling him up.

             _“Te vesti,”_ said Vannus, and disappeared from Celatus’ side to finally drag on the belt. _“Tibi edendum est.”_

 

            They ate. They read. They were oiled and scraped by slaves, and bathed on cool marble; then Vannus walked away. Celatus followed – because Vannus was a mystery, and mysteries were Celatus’ trade – and found his friend sitting in one of the long walks in the back garden, with his back to the cultivated plants, mutely watching, through one of the narrow windows, the fields and farmsteads which were scattered out towards the horizon. Celatus stared for a long time, but Vannus did not move but to blink, and did not speak until Celatus had settled on the bench beside him: not touching, but close enough that it remained a possibility.

            “I should not love you.”

            Celatus wanted to protest, but he knew Vannus to be right.

            “You’re too cold to be loved.”

            “Yet not so cold that I cannot love.”

            Vannus sighed through his nose, and looked down and away from the view, into his lap. His voice dropped to a murmur.

            “I feared as much.”

            “Feared?” Celatus frowned, and was struck with an indefinable horror.

            “If you love me,” said Vannus, not looking, “then I really will be lost.”

            “How so?”

            “If you love me,” Vannus said again, slower, as if to explain something to a child, “then I may never leave your side again.”

            Celatus smiled to one side, half-ecstatic and half-amused. “But I’m a genius, Vannus,” he said. “I know every street in Rome, and every main thoroughfare through Italy. You could never be _lost_ with me.”

            The expression on Vannus’ face as he looked – at last – at Celatus’ face, was truly unbelieving: amused and exhausted and as tragic as Antigone.

            And then he laughed – laughed like the wind in the trees, like Jewish arrows and the arena’s applause – and leaned his head back against the column behind him with a sigh.

             _“Heu, Celate, o mi Celate…”_ he breathed. _“Quid egimus?”_

 

            A soldier, well-used to manouvres and battle-plans, Vannus waited until Phoebus had sunk low below the horizon, and the new moon had veiled her face in the sky. Over a week he waited – nine days, to be precise – and carried on as normal until the stars hid behind clouds and the slaves went to rest, and, in their shared room, Vannus pulled Celatus with whispering hands into an embrace. He rested his palms first on Celatus’ waist, then his ribs, then the small of his back, with his eyes fixed on Celatus’ sternum and his breath steady and afar.

             _“Licetne te osculari?”_

            Celatus felt as if the Lacus Curtius had opened up in his chest. Troy could have fallen about his ears and he would not have known. He let himself be pulled in further – let his instincts prevail in the dipping of his brow to Vannus’, and in the hands which drifted up to hold Vannus’ shoulders between them.

             _“Tibi licet.”_

            Vannus kissed like a nymph moving on water: light, loving, and sweet. He cradled Celatus’ cheekbone as he might fine glassware or a still-beating heart, and his mouth was warm, and soft, and lovely. The fingers which traced the creases of Celatus’ tunic were like the clearest mountain spring.

            It almost made Celatus want to pray.

            Vannus’ neck was long as he reached for Celatus’ mouth with his own, his tendons taut and jaw stark in the shadows of the single, lit lamp. Celatus whimpered in the back of his throat, and bent further for him, as the fingers of his right hand, unbidden, reached for the fragile skin, and his eyes fell closed of their own volition. Without sight, the only sensations were Vannus’ warm body by his, Vannus’ lapping lips on his, Vannus’ blunt, deft hands now pressing him inexorably, delightfully closer. He kissed and kissed and kissed Celatus, small, sipping nips which left him hamstrung; and when Vannus’ tongue brushed against his bottom lip, Celatus could have died from ecstasy.

             _“Ne umquam desinas,”_ he whispered, pulling away just far enough to breathe the words against Vannus’ mouth. He kissed him again, once, twice, and pressed the words to Vannus’ lips with his own. _“Numquam, numquam. Ne desinas.”_

            Vannus smiled. _“Optata tua abnuis,”_ he whispered, a glimpse of teeth in the shadows beneath dark, sparkling eyes. Celatus’ breath must have been stolen by a spirit, for he could not catch it, not when Vannus was glancing at his mouth and letting a hush of laughter fall from his tongue. Celatus darted forward to catch it – licked it from Vannus’ open mouth and followed it with lips and heart. The taste of him – the very _taste_ – was both sharp and soft, warm and wet on the tip of his tongue. He pulled the breath from Vannus: pulled his kisses and laughter from deep in his belly and throat with presses of his own parted lips.

             _“Ad cubilem moveamus?”_ Vannus said, over a breathy laugh. Made mute, Celatus nodded, and let Vannus tug him by the waist, arms, wrists, hands, to the over-large bed, then watched him sit and push himself back to make room for Celatus beside him; room that was quickly and wondrously filled by Celatus’ long and clumsy limbs. He crawled onto the mattress, and reclined on his elbow in order to get his right arm around Vannus’ injured shoulder. In turn, Vannus’ hand slipped to the back of Celatus’ neck and pulled him forward, pulled their lips to touching in the shuddering dark. Minutes passed, perhaps hours, as they shifted incrementally on the bed to test different angles, different placements of hands and chests, until they tired too much for kissing, and silently agreed to rest their weary lips. They lay on their sides, and Celatus held Vannus’ jaw and breathed with him until the Briton slipped from his grasp and pulled the covers up over their hips, side by side. The lamp had burned down to an ember, now, and again Celatus pressed his fingers to Vannus’ jaw and neck, then tucked his head under Vannus’ chin. He pressed his eyes to Vannus’ beautiful, mortal throat, and might have sung his joy to the skies had he not preferred their silent comfort.

             _“Me ames,”_ he whispered to the ragged edge of Vannus’ tunic, _“ad horam summum.”_

            Vannus’ lips pressed, warm and dry, to Celatus’ forehead. _“Amplius,”_ he replied on his breath, stirring Celatus’ hair. _“Dum hanc villam relinqueremus, amabo.”_

            Celatus, genuine, chuckled, and felt Vannus’ arm tighten across his back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin translations in mouseover text; smooth translation of Cicero in the end notes.

            “Sed tamen… recorda– recordatione, nostrae amicitiae sic fruor, ut – ut… beate vici– vi– Celate, quid –”

            “Vixisse.”

            “ _O,_ vixisse, verum. Vixisse videar, quia cum – _Scipione,_ Scipione – _vixerim…_ quocum… mihi con… _iuncta_ cura de publica re, et – et de privata, fuit; quocum et domus fuit et militia com– _communis –_ et? O, ineptos rhetores – id in quo… omnis vis est ami–”

            Subrisit.

            “Amicitiae… voluntatum, studiorum, senten– sententiarum summa… consensio.”

            “… Melius, Vanne.”

 

            Dust was on the horizon, and the sun was high and hot, and Vannus sat in the back gardens with Celatus and said: “There are two horses headed this way.”

            He was right.

            A man and a woman, on horseback, trotted up to the front doors, and when their steeds were taken by the slaves, they marched into the atrium where a high-chinned Celatus was waiting, with Vannus, straight-backed, just behind.

            “What would you have,” Celatus demanded, imperious but calm, and inexpressibly patrician, “that you disturb these halls of solitude and civility? News of troubled times is not welcome here, and Romans must pay duty to their hosts. You pay none.”

            The woman sneered at him, regardless, and turned to Vannus.

            “There is a rumour in the countryside that a soldier of the Flavians stays here,” she said. “Is that correct?”

            Vannus frowned, and forced his shoulders to drop. “I fought under Vespasian,” he said, “but my friend speaks true: ill news and poor guests are not welcome in our safe retreat.”

            “I never heard a soldier to seek a safe retreat,” the strange man retorted, and caused Vannus’ storm-blue eyes to fix on him.

            “I am soldier no longer.”

            “Your general and rightful emperor demands your service,” the woman replied, and Vannus’ dark gaze turned back to her.

            “ _I fight no more.”_

            “Vespasian’s forces have already entered Italy,” she insisted, “and shall defeat the usurper Vitellius. General Antonius Primus demands every unallied soldier in Italy to meet his legions at the nearest harbour –”

            “Then he demands too much,” Celatus interrupted. For a moment, he looked embarrassed to have spoken in Vannus’ affairs; but Vannus stepped up beside him, and his words allayed Celatus’ fears.

            “Cornelius Celatus speaks rightly,” he said. “I was wounded once already in fighting for the Flavians – my duty has been done. He can demand no more of me.”

            “Vespasian is the better emperor,” said the man. “He already has half the provinces’ support, and he _will_ meet Vitellius in battle.”

            “Then I wish him luck,” said Vannus. “But my duty has been done, and you demand too much in invading this household.”

            “ _Household?”_ the woman repeated with a leer. “I see no household but a dying remnant of a lost Republic, and his British catamite.”

            Vannus’ stern face became, somehow, sterner; Celatus, however, seemed overcome with rage. His lip curled, and a muscle in his cheek jumped.

            “ _Catamite?”_ he repeated. “If you throw insults around in my house, woman, you can expect to be repaid in full. I hardly think your own history would prove so much more decent if you think Piso to be no more but a foreign-born catamite. Parthia is not so very much closer to Rome than Britain, wouldn’t you say?”

            The woman’s mouth turned sour, and she spat, “I did not cross a sea to reach here, at least.”

            “Where are your orders?”

            Three faces turned to Vannus’ calm countenance.

            “Where are your seals; your armour, your standards?”

            “We’re messengers,” growled the strange man. “Sent by Vespasian’s forces –”

            Celatus interrupted him with a scoff. “I hardly think an aspiring emperor would send a runaway slave to carry important orders.”

            The man’s jaw went tight, and he growled: “I’m an _equestrian.”_

            “Don’t be ridiculous, do you think I can’t see the signs?” Celatus drawled. “Unfreed in your master’s will, so you ran away and met this ex-whore.”

            The woman nearly shrieked, but Celatus talked over her.

            “Now you pose as a legionaire, as if the pretence doesn’t sully an honourable profession. Did you hear rumours, and come to this house expecting to take someone away with you and rob him on the road? How _dare_ you.”

            “We are officers of Vespasian’s will –” the woman tried to insist, but Celatus was having none of it.

            “If you were officers of his will, you would have written orders as well as spoken, signed and sealed, you would bear his standards – you would hold yourself like Romans, instead of the criminals and outcasts that you are!”

            Instead of a reply, the woman whipped a knife from her belt, and stepped up to Celatus – at the same time as Vannus’ Apollo-handled dagger rose to meet her, his feet now planted before his friend and his blade at her throat.

            “Leave this house,” he said, in an even, quiet, and unmistakable tone and with a glance at both of their foes. “Or I shall find a stone to take from your bladders, and believe me when I tell you that my experience with a knife is sufficient to extract what I like when I carve open your bellies.”

            Their silence spoke enough.

            “Will that be all?” Celatus asked, having regained his imperious calm. The strangers exchanged a fearful glance – and then the woman’s knife was gone, so that they might leave the house on scrambling feet. A moment later, the sound of horses’ hooves reached them, and wisps of dust coiled towards the sky above the atrium.

            Celatus, after a long pause, frowned in what looked like genuine confusion. He arched the expression down at Vannus, who still stood before him, dagger in hand.

            “That’s not how you remove a bladder stone.”

            Vannus looked up at him, turning and replacing his dagger in his belt. “Well, yes,” he admitted, somewhat bemused. “But they didn’t know that, did they?”

            Celatus’ face did something very strange, wherein it seemed to be trying to express confusion, exasperation and affection all at once. He ended up with a smile, more or less, and, bewildered, laughed. Vannus dropped a lopsided smile towards him, and walked back towards the peristyle.

 

            Vannus would not kiss him in the light. Though Celatus swore to every god he could imagine that the slaves were loyal to the family, and would die before spreading rumours about one of its sons, Vannus would simply not allow it. He was a man who thrived on danger, but he would not risk their reputations on this. He snatched quick pecks in corners, caressed bare ribs in bed, and drew Celatus close to hold him in the atrium only in the light of the stars; and refused to kiss more than a cheekbone in the summer sun.

            Unfortunately, the only effect this had was to make Celatus want to lay him out on their bed and drink in every inch of him when he could. Vannus took this treatment with uncharacteristic good grace.

            “I wouldn’t believe it if I weren’t seeing it myself,” he chuckled, with his hands by his head on the pillow and his calves rubbing insistently along Celatus’ hips and legs, while Celatus kissed and kissed and kissed his neck and cheeks. “I’d almost think you wanted to fuck me, if perhaps you’d ever shown an interest in fucking anyone.”

            Celatus stilled, chest to naked chest, and placed his hands flat on the bed above Vannus’ shoulders to push himself up.

            “Sorry,” he frowned – “what?”

            Vannus made a face caught between contentment and confusion, and said: “Well, you’ve never shown any interest in sex before. At least, not that I’ve seen. Perhaps you’ve been keeping it a particularly good secret?”

            “No,” said Celatus anxiously, “no, I… suppose I haven’t.”

            “Well, there you go, then,” said Vannus with a smile. “You’re very enthusiastic for someone who doesn’t want to fuck their bedfellow, but I know you better than to assume.”

            Celatus stared for a long moment, until Vannus was just uncomfortable enough to begin to say something, at which point the patrician interrupted.

            “Do _you_ want to fuck _me?”_

            Vannus nearly choked. His hands came down from their languid position by his head, and he pressed up until he sat with Celatus kneeling between his bent legs. “Celatus…” he said, then sighed. “I was always meant to find a wife, and start a family, you know; but I suppose that’s unlikely, at this stage. But you…” He caught Celatus’ eye. “Surely your family has expectations of you.”

            “Surely they do,” Celatus drawled, “and just as surely they’ve long-since given them up. I don’t care about the repercussions. I don’t care if it makes me impotent, or broken, I don’t _want_ a wife, and I never have. Not in any way.But I do want you, Vannus, Minerva protect me _._ And you didn’t answer my question.”

            Vannus grimaced. “I don’t… I don’t want to _fuck_ you,” he began, not meeting Celatus’ eye, “not that, that would be strange, but – there are…” He touched his fingertips to Celatus’ hip just above his underwear. “Certain impulses I might have.”

            “Impulses of a sexual nature,” Celatus finished for him, which elicited an embarrassed half-laugh and a grimace. Vannus rested his hand more firmly around Celatus’ hip.

            “Yes, I suppose you could say that.”

            There was a lull, and it looked, almost, as if Vannus was considering leaving – pulling his legs back in to himself and turning away – which Celatus simply would not have. He _liked_ having Vannus this way after days of abstention, and he would have preferred for Vannus to like it too. On impulse, he leaned forward, far enough to rest his knuckles against the bed astride Vannus’ backside, and kissed his cheek. The response was molten agreement.

            “I’m not _incapable,”_ Celatus hummed against Vannus’ temple as the doctor lowered his mouth to Celatus’ jaw, neck, and shoulder. “I could… think of a few possibilities…”

            “ _Not now,”_ Vannus whispered. His right hand drifted up to Celatus’ chest, then both encircled his back to draw him close. His thighs fell apart and his feet dragged closer, and Celatus found himself up on his knees with Vannus’ mouth on his collar, until his head dropped and fell forward over Vannus’ shoulder. _“Te osculer,” _ Vannus breathed against his chest. Celatus’ bare hands were on the skin of his back, and his own throat felt ragged with pleasure. _“Modo plus te osculer.”_

            To which Celatus was incapable of arguing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cicero, _De Amicitia_ , 15  
> (Latin text from [Perseus](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0040%3Asection%3D15), translation by myself with help from Michael Grant [Penguin: 1971])  
> "But nevertheless, so much do I enjoy the recollection of our friendship, that I seem to have lived well because I lived with Scipio, with whom I had a shared concern for public and private affairs, and home and military service in common, and -- that in which lies all the strength of friendship -- the utmost agreement of attitude, inclination, and opinion."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin translations in mouseover text; smooth translation of Cicero in the end notes.

            “Amicitia res plurimas continet,” Vannus, subridens, recitavit. In cubile apud eum, Celatus visus dormivisse est. “Quoquo te… verteris, praesto est, nullo loco excl– excluditur; numquam – _in–tem–pes–ti–va,_ numquam molesta est.”

            Celatus orem ad umerum pressit, et murmuravit.

            “Itaque, non aqua; non igni – o, ut aiunt; pluribus locis utimur quam amicitia,” Vannus perrexit. “Neque ego nunc de volgari aut de mediocri, quae –” Risit. “Quae _tamen ipsa et delectat et prodest,_ sed – sed de _vera_ et _perfecta loquor –_ Celate, homo est tibi placeat –”

            Celatus fremuit et cubito fodicavit.

            “Loquor, loquor… loquor, _qualis_ eorum, qui pauci moni– mon– Celate, quid est?”

            Celatus oculos patefecit, et super umerum visit ut verba legeret, dixitque: “N et M misces.”

            “O!” Vannus nutavit. “O. _No–mi–nan–_ tur. Ita?”

            “Ita.”

            “ _Nominantur._ Qui pauci _nominantur,_ fuit. Nam et secundas res splendid… splendidiores facit amicitia, et adversas, partiens con– _communicans–_ que, leviores.”

            Cum risu finivit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cicero, De Amicitia, 22  
> (Latin text from [Perseus](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0040%3Asection%3D22), translation by myself with help from Michael Grant [Penguin: 1971])  
> "Friendship contains most things: wherever you turn, it is at hand, it is shut out by no place, never unseasonable, never irksome. And so we use no water, no fire, as they say, in more places than we use friendship. Nor do I now speak of the common or moderate friendship, which nevertheless both delights and benefits, but of true and complete friendship, such as there was of those few who are mentioned [earlier in the text: Theseus and Pirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Oresetes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias]. For friendship makes favourable things more brilliant, and misfortunes, by dividing and sharing them, lighter."
> 
> I am so sorry for all this Latin and Cicero please bear with me, I'm an insufferable sap.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin translations in mouseover text.

             Perhaps it came from years of fighting instincts and helmeted protection, but Vannus, as Celatus quickly came to enjoy, had a very sensitive neck. When Celatus kissed him there, and in the right mood, Vannus would all but melt against him, smiling and straining as Celatus’ lips grew wetter against his skin; and a low rumble would escape from his chest when Celatus pressed the flat of his tongue against the pulsing cords that ran from collar to jaw.

            Late summer had brought the sun to blazing long in the sky, and though Vannus enjoyed the heat, Celatus loathed the change in weather, and spent more and more time inside the villa, languid and lazy in the cool shade of the atrium or peristyle. Vannus would help the slaves on the grounds, or go for walks, or practise with the weights in the gardens; and the only benefit Celatus could see in any of these activities was that they made Vannus pliant and pleased to enjoy both himself and Celatus when the sun set and dinner came and went.

            And so it was that Celatus knelt behind where Vannus sat at the edge of their mattress, and kissed the Briton’s neck, and breathed against his hair, and wrapped his chest in long, lean arms, and listened to him purr.

            “You’ve been very patient, you know,” he said, with a lowered, muffled voice, between applying his plush lips to Vannus’ skin. A breathless laugh rushed from the other man’s throat, expelled up towards the ceiling. His arms were laid against Celatus’ on his belly and chest over his tunic, and he twined their fingers clumsily together.

            “Patient?” he repeated. “I’m not sure what about but – _ah!_ – thank you.”

            Celatus relented from where he’d begun to scrape his teeth just so against Vannus’ skin. “Very patient about this,” he said, as he dropped one hand to swipe along Vannus’ inner thigh, stopping at his underwear, the movement having pushed Vannus’ tunic to an improper height. Vannus made a small, surprised noise, something between a gasp and a choked-off groan.

            “I told you,” he said, at the same time as he tried to push away from Celatus and succeeded only in thrusting his crotch against his hand; he swallowed, and went on. “I told you that wasn’t necessary. I don’t want to do anything to –”

            “To offend me, I know.” Celatus sighed against Vannus’ shoulder and wrapped both arms around his middle again. “Perhaps if _I_ fucked _you,”_ he offered, sounding highly uninterested. Vannus elbowed him in the ribs hard enough to elicit a yelp and withdrawal.

            “What do you think I am,” Vannus growled, turning to face him, “your slave?”

            “It was a _joke,_ Vannus,” Celatus grumbled, nursing his ribs. Vannus scoffed at him, and turned back around to lean over with elbows on knees. Celatus watched him for a moment, then slid back over to behind him, once more settled with knees on either side of Vannus’ hips, arms around him, and lips against the nape of his neck.

            “My point stands,” he said quietly. “I _want_ to please you.”

            “I _am_ pleased,” Vannus argued, but Celatus overran him.

            “I want to _pleasure_ you.”

            There was a second of silence, followed by a loud rush of air from Vannus’ chest. Celatus took the opportunity to tighten his embrace.

            “Celatus –”

            “Oh, come now,”Celatus said, with a roll of his eyes, “you can’t pretend yourself not to have thought about it, to _want_ it.”

            “Celatus, it’s not as simple as all that –”

            “Come here.”

            Vannus looked over one shoulder, then the other, craning to watch as Celatus shuffled back on the mattress to make room. “What – what are you doing?”

            “Just let me _try_ it, Vannus,” Celatus sighed, _“please.”_

            On slow and wary limbs, Vannus turned and moved forward onto his knees. His feet were already bare and washed, and as he approached Celatus, the patrician’s hands moved to his belt, the leather of which hushed and creaked as Celatus fiddled with the knot, Vannus’ hands warm on his arms. After he’d tossed the belt aside, Celatus shifted closer, and pressed his fingers to the back of Vannus’ thighs – pushed upward, against his tunic’s hem, and towards his backside. But Vannus winced, and blenched, and rose further on his knees, as his hands batted at Celatus’.

            “No, st–” he stuttered. “Celatus –”

            In response, Celatus brought his hands around to the outer ridges of Vannus’ thighs and up to his hips. The tunic had been pushed far up, now, along with Vannus’ elevation, and his groin was almost at eye-level for Celatus as he tucked his fingertips into the waist of Vannus’ underwear and stared with something like longing, anticipation, and fear. Vannus’ hands came to rest on top of his, and when Celatus looked up for permission, Vannus’ eyes grew wide and dark, and his mouth tight, and he nodded, as his fingers urged Celatus up with a firmer grip.

            At the same time as Celatus knelt higher and brought his palms up to the skin at the small of Vannus’ back, the doctor stripped off his tunic over his head and threw it behind him to the floor. Celatus pressed his forehead, then, to Vannus’ sternum, with his hair just tickling the edge of the shoulder scar and Vannus’ hands like rays of the sun against his back.

            “Where do you want me?” Celatus asked, a votive offering to Vannus’ chest. Vannus chuckled.

            “I thought this was _your_ idea,” he said. “Has your plan run out already?”

            “Oh, Minerva,” Celatus whispered, and rose higher on his knees, “you utter _cunt.”_

            He kissed Vannus’ lips with a smile on his own, and Vannus broke away just enough to reply: “There’s none of those here, _care._ ”

            “Oh _don’t,”_ Celatus laughed, mortified, “don’t call me that!”

            Vannus’ expression broadened in delight. “You don’t like it?” he teased. “You don’t like being dear to me? What should I call you then? _Delicate? Optissime? Mellite!”_

            Celatus gripped at Vannus’ waist and pressed his forehead again to his chest, and, laughing, cried, “Stop this at once!” But Vannus just held on to his back, and replied, in oratorical tone:

             _“Vivamus, mi Celate, et amemus, et rumores senum severiorum –”_

            Celatus drew back and pushed him to the bed before he could finish, forcing the breath and laughter from Vannus’ lungs.

            “That’s not even the correct _metre!”_ he shouted, still grinning. “By all the muses, and with Nero but one year dead, you massacre an artist like that? Where did you read Catullus, anyway?”

            “In _your_ library, remember?” Vannus needled. _“You_ taught me, after all.”

            “And if only I hadn’t, and your skills be damned!” Celatus retorted with his wild smile, as he pounced forward, knees braced on either side of Vannus’ right leg and hands astride his shoulders. But Vannus rose to meet him, pushed up on his elbows, as he teased him.

             _“Mi care!”_ he simpered, laughing at Celatus’ scoff. _“Carior, carior!”_ Celatus drew back with a scowl, but Vannus followed, leaning on his hands behind him and chin forward in glee, until suddenly they were nose-to-nose again, and Celatus’ frown was fascinated, his lip weakened, and his gaze roamed from Vannus’ eyes to his mouth. Vannus, too, sobered in such proximity, and licked his lips, and when he spoke again, it was with a quiet and earnest voice.

             _“Carissime,”_ he said, like a blow to Celatus’ ribs. _“Mi carissime, verum.”_

            Celatus said nothing for a moment, but they breathed together, until:

             _“Mi –”_

            Vannus smiled at his hesitation.

             _“Mi…”_

            He leaned forward a little further, and kissed Celatus’ cheek.

             _“Tuus,”_ he whispered. _“Satis.”_

            Celatus looked at him, and there was not only wonder, but hunger and urgency in his eyes. “Minerva above,” he breathed, “I should hate you for that.”

            Vannus laughed, and kissed him, and laughed again, until Celatus was pushing him back down onto his back and kissing his face and neck, clambering so that he was knelt between Vannus’ legs. His hands went to Vannus’ hips, and toyed with the material there, until Vannus pushed up and let Celatus strip the underwear from his legs and lay him out like a platter of gilded fruit, his palms resting on light-haired knees. Vannus lay there for him, unsure of exactly where to put his hands, but still smiling in his eyes and the corners of his mouth. His cock was beginning to fill against his hip, and Celatus eyed it as he might a potential predator – or prey.

            “And what will you do, now you have me like this?” Vannus asked, mock-coy. Celatus’ fingers grew restless against his knees.

            “Kiss you, first,” he muttered. “Decide later.”

            He made good on the promise, and pulled his tunic off over his head before he lay down, chest-to-chest, against Vannus, raised just a fraction on elbows and knees. Vannus fumbled above them until his fingers met a pillow, and Celatus helped to shove it under his head and perfect the angle as their mouths met.

            There was something, now, for Vannus’ hands to do: to press, to caress, and to knead against the skin and flesh of Celatus’ back, as his knees drew up to clasp Celatus’ hips between his thighs. He felt distinctly and uncomfortably submissive like that; until Celatus’ clothed groin pushed against his cock as they shifted, and he had to break away for a low gasp and breath in response, and all thoughts of _submission_ died behind sparks of pleasure. Celatus pulled back and stared at him for a moment; then he repeated the movement, thrusting slow and purposeful against Vannus’ hips with his own.

            “ _Oh,_ yes,” Vannus groaned, as his eyes fell shut. “Yes, I could get used to this…”

            “Don’t,” Celatus murmured, again repeating the movement with his nose by Vannus’ and Vannus’ fingers tight around his ribs. “I’ve something else in mind.”

            “Oh _Venus,”_ Vannus gasped. “Don’t tell me, don’t fucking tell me, _Mithr–”_ He broke off when Celatus’ hips ground again against his own – which rose now to meet him – for his breathing was beginning to grow laboured. “You’re remarkably good at this, you know,” he quipped.

            “I can be, when I’ve something worthwhile to work for.”

            Vannus groaned aloud at that, and pushed one hand out to press against Celatus’ back and pull him closer as he drove his hips up once more. Celatus kissed him again, and again, but rose up on his knees, tucking them under himself, even as the friction of his pelvis was replaced by the sweet grip of his palm. A low shout was forced from Vannus’ lungs, right against Celatus’ mouth, whose hand then stilled.

            “Venus above,” he whispered, as Vannus’ eyelashes fluttered.

            “Yes, something like that,” Vannus panted. Celatus stroked him again, long and tight, and pulled an outstretched groan from Vannus’ throat. “It’s too dry,” he managed to choke out. “Celatus, we need –”

            Celatus drew back his hand until he held it between their chests, and spat into his palm; then held it out below Vannus’ chin. Still breathing far too hard, Vannus glanced down at the hand, then at Celatus, and held his gaze as he struggled to sit up by a fraction. Celatus followed him, moving closer even as Vannus spat, and brought his hand back to Vannus’ cock.

            No one who knew the Celatus of Rome would have believed the man of the Arretium villa – no one but Vannus could ever have known. He who stalked the streets like cold fire was there warm and pliant, and threw all of his worth into the pleasure of another. With a slicked hand and heady mouth, and Vannus’ legs bracketed around him, his only efforts were to pull another shiver from Vannus’ spine, another groan from his chest, another twitch that set his eyes to flickering and his lips to gasping so much that he could no longer kiss. Celatus gave up his kisses over and over so that Vannus could arch his back and cry out to the ceiling – until Vannus’ hands, which enclosed the corners of Celatus’ jaw, went tight, and he bared his teeth and hissed.

            “ _Too slow.”_

            Without time for Celatus to blink, Vannus pushed and tugged and swung his body around and his leg over, until he knelt straddling Celatus’ hips and leaning over with one forearm leant against the wall and his left hand between his legs. Now it was Celatus’ hands which gripped at Vannus’ neck and waist as Vannus fucked his own fist, hard and fast. Celatus was not prepared for such ferocity: he wanted to consume it – to preserve it – but had to settle for stretching up to mouth at Vannus’ neck and jaw, and pressing him closer with hands on either side of his spine, or against the backs of his thighs, until Vannus jerked forward with a cry and gasped out, _“Celate – Celate!”_ The arm that held him up shook, and, with his mouth by Celatus’ ear, his breath left him with a hoarse whine; and if he could have seen Celatus’ eyes, he would have watched them shine silver like the delight of the goddess even as his own pleasure overwhelmed him. Celatus held his breath with Vannus, and only exhaled when he did – for he was loathe to break the fragile silence that accompanied Vannus’ quivering hips – before kissing his cheek, and the edge of his ear where it met his jaw.

             _“Vanne,”_ he said. _“Vanne.”_

            His belly and chest were sticky and growing cold, even with Vannus’ breath hot on his neck, and Celatus wrinkled his nose.

             _“O Vanne,”_ he sighed. _“Quem squalorem.”_

            Vannus laughed, even as his legs turned to liquid beneath him and he sank into Celatus’ lap. His breath shook on the inhale – like exhaustion, or mirth, or sorrow – and he dropped his brow to Celatus’ brow, and wrapped his arms around Celatus’ neck and shoulders, as his fingers moved without thought to stroke through Celatus’ hair.

             _“Gratias,”_ he sighed, and pressed his lips to a spot below Celatus’ ear which inexplicably made him hold Vannus back all the tighter. _“Carissime, gratias.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'vivamus, mi Celate...' line is, of course, a misquote of the opening lines of Catullus 5: 'Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, / rumoresque senum severiorum / omnes unius aestimemus assis!' (Latin from [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_5)). I've never actually studied metre in Catullus, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that the changes Vannus makes skew the rhythm a bit...


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin translations in mouseover text; smooth translation of Cicero in the end notes.

            Every passing traveller brought news of revolts and rebellions – of troop movements and looted towns – and kisses and writing lessons could only do so much to make Vannus forget the sight of refugees on the road.

            Even Celatus, then, began to worry.

 

            “Amor enim,” Vannus mussavit dum legit, “ex quo amicitia nominata est, princeps est ad bene... vol– benevolentiam, coniungendam.” Anhelavit. “Nam – nam _utilitates_ quidem etiam ab eis percipiuntur saepe, qui simulatione amicitiae coluntur et observantur temporis causa –”

            Celatus clamaverat et eum ignaviae et tarditatis insimulaverat, ante cucurrit ut castra manata indagaret. Vannus voluit voluminem deiecisse. Oculos pressit, et suspiravit.

            “In amicitia…” perrexit, “autem, nihil factum – nihil simulatum est – et, quidquid est…”

            Stetit.

            “Quidquid est…”

            Significationes verborum scivit, sed dixisse noluit.

             _Id est verum et voluntarium._

            Cum suspirio longo claroque, voluminem misit, et sedit in atrio.

            “Verum et voluntarium,” iteravit, cum capite posito in manibus. “Nihil factum. Nihil simulatum.”

            Spiritus erat pondus in pectore.

 

            “ _You can’t do that.”_

            Vannus kissed him, over and over, though the sun blazed overhead, the shade of the colonnade useless against the heat.

            “You can’t run off into danger without thought, without _me.”_

            His words were whispered, interspersed between pecks, and Celatus’ hands were tight upon his waist even as Vannus’ shifted against the faintly reddened skin of Celatus’ neck and jaw.

            “I didn’t find anything anyway,” Celatus tried to protest, though kindly. Vannus shook his head.

            “You _can’t.”_

            He kissed and kissed and kissed him, then wrapped him up in his arms and held him close enough to feel his heartbeat through their pressed-together chests.

            “I’ve read more of the Cicero,” he said to the courtyard, and felt Celatus smile against his scalp.

            “Ah, so that’s what brought this on.”

            Vannus pinched him in the ribs through his tunic, and laughed at his outraged cry.

 

            “Which legions did you see?” Vannus asked him that night, as he sat across from the reclining Celatus at dinner. Celatus raised one eyebrow at him.

            “So now you _are_ interested?”

            Vannus scowled. “Since you _did_ risk your life,” he said, “you may as well tell me what you saw.”

            Celatus shrugged, with an anxious nonchalance. “I told you,” he said, “nothing much. There was no camp; only a scouting party. I heard enough to hear of an army following – to be sent out of Rome by Vitellius – but nothing more.”

            “Did you hear no names?” Vannus pressed. “Of the generals, or the legions that would follow?”

            Celatus swallowed a mouthful of mushrooms. “Valens has been delayed by an illness,” he said, “and Caecina shall be sent ahead. That is all that I know.”

            Vannus leaned on his knees, and picked and plucked at his plate-full of food as Celatus watched him, and divined his purposes, and said nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cicero, _De Amicitia_ , 26  
> (Latin text from [Perseus](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0040%3Asection%3D26), translation by myself with help from Michael Grant [Penguin: 1971])  
> "Indeed love [amor], from which friendship [amicitia] is named, is chief towards the joining of goodwill. For expediency, in fact, is also often grasped by those who are cherished in a pretence of friendship and respected for the sake of the time; in friendship, on the other hand, nothing is invented, nothing pretended, and, whatever there is, it is true and voluntary."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin translations in mouseover text.

            News came to them eleven days before the kalends of October. One of the slaves of the villa – a hardy young woman – came running into the atrium at mid-morning to announce to Vannus that there were legions on the road, approaching. Immediately, Vannus was on his feet, as he abandoned the tablet on which he’d been practising his letters and ordered a horse to be readied.

            “Two horses!” Celatus cried after the woman, before he turned back to his friend. “Vannus?”

            “You said your slaves were at my disposal,” Vannus murmured, as he gathered his things and stood to march them back through the peristyle, with Celatus following.

            “Your eye is on the road,” Celatus said, accusatory, “not here.”

            “Why _should_ it be here?” Vannus snapped. “This is not some eternal haven, Celatus, you and I both know we’ll be headed back to Rome eventually. Is it not best to know when that should be?” He pushed open the door to the library with his shoulder.

            “You intend to ride out to meet them,” Celatus spat.

            “ _Meet_ them?” Vannus repeated, as he dropped stylus and waxed wood on one of the tables and turned round to face Celatus. “Have you so little regard for my judgement that you think I should _meet_ them?”

            “Then what else are you –”

            “Celatus, you fool,” Vannus sighed, closing his eyes momentarily – “what was your aim in searching for their camp? Hm?” His tongue poked out to wet his lips, and Celatus recognised it for the nervous gesture it was. “Did you plan to _meet_ them, or to keep up with the legions’ news? I only mean to see who is fighting for whom.”

            Celatus, on an impulse, reached out to grip Vannus’ upper arms – but immediately, Vannus shrugged him off, and stepped back a little further into the shadow of the unlit room.

            “You can’t stop me,” he said, and Celatus smirked over his injured pride.

            “I called for two horses,” he replied, “didn’t I?”

 

            The lines of marching soldiers were long on the road – too long even to see them all at once. On the road from the villa to the main thoroughfare, the dust cloud drifted past, and Celatus and Vannus trotted on horseback and agreed to split up: Celatus to investigate the leading legions and Vannus to see the rear guard. They galloped away from each other and towards the road, and Vannus set his mount to cantering up and down the lines in his search. He was close enough to be well and truly seen, but he didn’t care: soldiers on march, as he knew very well, were unlikely to take much note of one or two civilian spectators by the side of the road. He counted the soldiers, however – many German – and watched the standards as they passed, to note the legions: the tail end of the Fifth Larks; the Twenty-Second Primigenia; followed by the Twenty-First Predator and First Italian, with a smattering of British and auxiliary troops on the horizon behind. Vannus’ horse jerked and shied away from the noise and bustle, but as he cooed at the animal and turned it away from the road, the sound of thundering hooves rose up beneath the rhythmic roar of the army, and Celatus came galloping up.

            “I saw –” he was panting. “Vannus, I saw –”

            “Saw what?” Vannus frowned. “Which legions?”

            “Detachments, all,” Celatus cried, shaking his head, “but – Vannus, the Fifteenth was there.”

            Vannus reared back, enough to tug at the reins and send his horse to whinnying and shifting; but then he was leaning forward again, and urging his mount closer to Celatus’.

            “ _What?”_ was all he could say.

            “The first, fourth, fifteenth and sixteenth, those are the standards I saw –”

            “The first _what,_ the fifteenth _what,_ Celatus?” Vannus barked.

            “The – what?”

            Vannus groaned aloud in frustration. “They have _names,_ you fool!” he shouted, as he dug in his heels, and added over his shoulder – _“Why can you never remember what’s most important?”_

            With little prompting, Vannus’ horse galloped off, happy to release its restlessness in running. After a moment, Celatus could be heard to follow, but Vannus paid him no heed, and only scanned the blur of the army as he passed, with one thought in mind: _Legio mea. Legio mea adsit._

            The road flashed past, with its standards and weapons glinting dully in the autumn light, and dusty, marching feet led by proud men on proud horses bedecked with limp leather and brass. All the men he’d surveyed flew past, but Vannus slowed when he came to a new sight, much further up the road – the Sixteenth Gallic Legion which Celatus had reported, with its lion-crested standard-bearers. The legion marched on, heedless, and Vannus urged his horse forwards with a shout and a strike of his heels.

            The Sixteenth became a blur, but it was not the full legion, and soon Vannus saw a great shining ‘XV’ on its flag; and below it, not Apollo, but Fortuna, with her curled horn of plenty in hand. Vannus pulled his horse up to a faltering halt, and let out a sigh, though whether of disappointment or relief, he knew not.

            “What is it?” came Celatus’ voice from behind him as his horse cantered up. He pulled at the reins as he appeared beside Vannus, so that his horse, still skittish, stepped back and forth beside and before Vannus’ resting mount. “Vannus? Is it yours?”

            “Primigenia, Celatus,” Vannus said in a low, quiet voice. “The Fifteenth Primigenia, see the standard?”

            Celatus glanced over his shoulder for moment, then turned back to try to catch Vannus’ distant gaze.

            “… Vannus?” he repeated.

            “Apollonian,” he said merely. “We bear Apollo with us, not her.”

 

            They lingered only long enough for Vannus to watch the last lines of the Fifteenth Primigenia Legion be subsumed in his vision by the next troops, fickle Fortuna swallowed up by the dust. Without a word, then, Vannus pulled his horse around, and spurred it on into a quick pace towards the villa.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin translations in mouseover text; smooth translation of Cicero in the end notes.

            There was a hush that fell over the villa for a time. As September drew to a close, there hovered over not only Vannus and Celatus, but even the slaves which surrounded them, the constant knowledge that something very important, somewhere uncomfortably close, was happening; yet what it was, they could not tell. Nor could they claim to have chosen sides in the civil war which had already claimed so much of their lives, and almost all of their lives together. There was no escape from the hovering awareness of something coming to a head which they could neither influence nor foresee, for they had none of Sollemnis’ intelligence or Mykale’s insight to help them.

            In bed, at night, Vannus ran his hands over and over again along the lines of Celatus’ chest and waist and arms, with his eyes turned down, as if to reassure himself, or to ensure that Celatus was indeed there by his side.

            Celatus, then, would kiss Vannus’ brow, and urge him to sleep.

 

            In the end, they broke the silence on the day before the kalends with an enormous row, in which Vannus accused Celatus of deliberate insensibility, and the _nobilis_ in turn aimed his barbs at Vannus’ ignorance and “obvious” drive to abandon him. Indeed, Vannus did leave the villa; but it was only for the night, and when he returned with the dawn, Celatus met him at the door with an embrace, and a kiss to his cheek, and an apology which was murmured between them with two origins and two kind recipients.

            They shared honeyed figs after breakfast, as they reclined on pressed-together couches with the plate between them, and their fingers – long and thin, and stocky and tanned – brushing intentionally at the knuckles.

 

            “O praeclaram sapientiam!” Vannus, par rhetor antiquus, clamavit, et Celatus risit. “Solem enim e mundo tollere vid– videntur, ei, qui amicitiam e vita tollunt…” Iuxta Celatum sedit, voluminem intuens. “Qua nihil a dis immortal… immortalibus – _melius_ habemus. Nihil iucundius.”

            Celatus dextra circum medium corporem Vanni insinuavit, et genam basivit.

            “Nihil melius,” susurravit. “Nihil iucundius.”

            Vannus ad eum vertit, et orem basivit. “Tam sensus,” lusit. “Moveor.”

            Dextra Celati adstrinxit.

            “Bonum.”

 

            It was somehow unendingly curious that every time Vannus had his hair cut by Celatus’ slaves – no matter how many times it happened – he would look at himself in the pool in the atrium or one of Celatus’ polished bronze mirrors and feel the even edges, and smile with a furrow between his brows.

            “And what has you so concerned this time?” Celatus once asked, as they lounged about in the baths and Vannus smile-frowned at his reflection.

            “I’m not used to being so _neat,”_ Vannus had replied, in a curious tone. He’d looked up, and caught Celatus’ eye. “It seems any day now you’ll be trying to make someone respectable out of me.”

            Celatus had snorted to hide his blush. “Impossible,” he’d said, and determinedly held Vannus’ gaze from where he sat. “You couldn’t be more honourable if you _tried.”_

            Vannus had laughed him off; only later, at dinner, had he rapped Celatus’ knuckles with his own and said, honest and clear:

            “I know you don’t always want to be; but you’re a virtuous man, Celatus. I see it in you, no matter how you try to hide it.”

            Celatus had had no reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cicero, _De Amicitia_ , 47  
> (Latin text from [Perseus](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0040%3Asection%3D47), translation by myself with help from Michael Grant [Penguin: 1971])  
> "Oh distinguished philosophy! Truly they seem to abolish the sun from the heavens, they who remove friendship from life, in which we have nothing better from the immortal gods, nothing more pleasing."


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin translations in mouseover text.

            They didn’t have sex quite as often as Vannus might have preferred; he soon grew accustomed to divining when Celatus was merely indifferent, and open to the suggestion, or actively disinterested. Still, it came as a slight surprise every time Celatus responded to his heated kisses with one hand under his tunic and the other on his neck, as if there were some facet of Vannus which he had tasted, and wished to relive. Sometimes they went to bed together without contact, sometimes with a hand or knee jabbed close, or sometimes all entangled like vine leaves on a trellis; and sometimes they slept with only a murmur exchanged, sometimes with a brushing of fingers or lips, or sometimes after exhausting themselves with heavy kisses. Occasionally, then, Vannus would whisper, _“Licetne…?”_ , and Celatus would withdraw for a moment, and look him up and down, and smirk, and murmur back, _“Licet.”_

            On the night after the eighth day before the kalends of November, Vannus pulled away from Celatus’ mouth and asked, _“Licetne?”_ And Celatus stared at his rising, flushed chest and open lips, and breathed: _“Per deum, licet.”_

            With a sigh that rushed from him like blood, Vannus pressed forward – with his mouth before Celatus’ and his hand on his waist – until he was half-leaning and half-lying over the other, his weight on his right forearm and their breaths mingling hot between them. Vannus bent down the mere fraction that was required to kiss Celatus, a long, half-open kiss accompanied by a languid swipe of his tongue over their lower lips. Celatus hissed a breath through his nose at the tang of him, which sent a string of unthought actions through him: the closing of his eyes, the tightening of his arm around Vannus’ back, the heaving of his whole body to push up and press them together. Vannus groaned between kisses and, beneath the covers, slid his leg between Celatus’, lowering his weight, until he could roll his naked cock against Celatus’ hip.

            Perhaps it was the proof, perhaps the shock, perhaps sensation, but nevertheless, Celatus _whimpered._ His left hand was erratic and unsure, now grasping Vannus’ jaw to kiss him closer, now tugging at his neck and shoulder, now skipping down to stroke his ribs and waist and back, meeting his own right hand which was tight on Vannus’ bare, sweaty back.

            Vannus’ breath was growing hoarse and heavy in Celatus’ mouth. He groaned with the next thrust of his hips, and panted, “If you don’t want me to finish like this, you’d best warn me now.”

            Celatus sucked in a gasp which sounded, morbidly, like the one he gave when inspired on a case of murder; and kissed Vannus hard on the mouth.

            “I’m warning you,” he said, and, as Vannus stuttered in movement and breath, shoved him off and to the side in order to reverse their positions, so that it was Celatus who slid across with his legs straddling Vannus’ and his waist bent to keep their kisses as uninterrupted as possible.

            With a low, joyful hum, Vannus wrapped both arms around Celatus’ waist and pushed up with his hips, and broke the kiss. “I’m liking this…” he moaned; but even then, Celatus kissed him, then shifted with force, and pressed his mouth to Vannus’ cheek, and jaw, and neck. He moved down to Vannus’ collarbone and chest, with Vannus still thrusting up against his stomach – until Celatus’ hands swept down to his hips and the tops of his thighs, and pushed him back down against the mattress.

            “Don’t.”

            Vannus’ eyelids were drooping, his lungs and throat working hard, and when he glanced down at Celatus, his lips twitched upwards. “Why?”

            “You’ll see,” said Celatus, matching his mirth, and moved further down to kiss at Vannus’ belly, navel and hips, and _oh,_ then Vannus got the message.

            “No,” he choked out, and pushed up onto his elbows, dragging his hips out from under Celatus’ mouth – _“no,_ Celatus, you’re not one to do that –”

            But Celatus half-rose on his knees, and grabbed at where Vannus’ muscled thighs met his hips, and held him just enough that Vannus ceased in his retreat.

            “ _I want to,”_ Celatus insisted.

            “No, you don’t,” Vannus retorted, eyes wide, “are you _mad?”_

            “You won’t be fucking me,” said Celatus, as he pressed his palms more firmly down on Vannus’ hips – but Vannus squirmed, and still protested, rising up onto his hands.

            “It’s disgusting,” he cried, “it’s base! You _kiss_ me with that mouth, and I wouldn’t want to – you’re not a _fellator,_ that isn’t –”

            Celatus brought their eyes level and repeated: “I _want to.”_

            “It’s _whore’s_ work, Celatus, you shouldn’t –”

            But Celatus leaned forward, and as his weight pressed down on Vannus’ thighs, he kissed him, and pressed their tongues together like a prelude. Vannus, despite himself, gave a whimper of pleasure, then pulled away with a jerk of his head.

            “No one will know,” Celatus crooned, as he leaned in after him and pressed his lips to Vannus’ cheek. His deep voice rumbled in Vannus’ ear. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t enjoy it.”

            “Celatus, you _shouldn’t –”_

            “I. _Want._ To.”

            He kissed Vannus again to halt his retreat; then, with palm on his sternum, pressed him, enraptured, back to the mattress.

            “Celatus –”

            He mouth his was back by Vannus’ groin, and the erection there, which had momentarily flagged, swelled again under Celatus’ hand.

            “ _O-oh,_ Celatus –”

            He kissed the underside of Vannus’ cock, and relished the shaking breath which followed. Smiling like a cat with a mouse to toy with, he grasped the base, sealed his lips over the head, and _sucked._ Vannus shouted with pleasure and shock from above him, and as Celatus experimented with lips and tongue, he listened to every moan and garbled word the man let out as he forced his own hips down and clung to the mattress like a drowning man.

            “Celatus, _Celatus –_ oh, _Venus,_ where did you learn that –”

            In truth, Celatus had no idea what he was doing, but that didn’t stop his enthusiasm. He knew, more or less, what a man might find pleasurable – had been privy, welcome or not, to more than enough conversations to understand the basics – and was creative enough to experiment, sharp enough to examine Vannus’ responses, and attentive enough to remember and extrapolate what worked best. He sucked and pulled at Vannus’ cock, shifted away to lick and stroke, bent lower to kiss his balls, thighs, hips and belly. All the while Vannus panted and whined above him, and his hands alternated between stroking at Celatus’ nape or through the hair above his ears, and pressing or plucking at the mattress below him.

            “Celatus –”

            His thighs trembled with the effort of holding his hips still; apart from this, his chest, sweat-glistened, heaved, and his head tossed, while his knees bent and unbent, every muscle in his legs tensed, and his toes curled. When, however, Celatus decided to test himself and draw Vannus as deep as he could, pushing apart his thighs with his palms and suppressing as much as he could the instinct to gag, Vannus let out a hoarse and broken cry, only a fraction below a high whine, and his hips bucked up into Celatus’ mouth. Immediately, the patrician choked, and pulled away, coughing.

            “I’m sorry –” Vannus panted. Though his eyes were unfocused, he still sat up, and held out an arm toward his friend. “Oh Mithras, Celatus, I didn’t mean to –”

            Celatus did not answer but to push Vannus back, flat on the bed, and lean over with one hand still on his chest, and kiss him, hard. Vannus’ breath hitched and huffed through his nose – he could taste himself on Celatus’ tongue, all salt, sweat and grime – yet he gripped at the sides of Celatus’ head, carded his fingers through Celatus’ hair, and _pushed up to meet him,_ reached out around his shoulders to pull him closer.

            “I’m not done,” Celatus muttered between kisses; but Vannus angled his mouth and devoured him until he keened. “I’m not _done.”_

            This time, Celatus punctuated his words with a pull of his hand on Vannus’ cock, and, predictably, Vannus gasped into his mouth, and trembled as he fell back to the mattress, his hands spasming as they released Celatus from their greedy grasp.

            Immediately, Celatus retreated far enough to take Vannus again in hand and mouth. He braced his left forearm against Vannus’ hip, and though Vannus gripped his arm in turn, it was not to pull it away. In his weakness and ardour, he ran the fingers of his left hand through Celatus’ richly coiled hair, and turned his half-lidded eyes down his body to where Celatus’ plump, reddened lips were wrapped around his cock. The very sight was overpowering – Celatus’ sensuous mouth, stretched wide and hungry around him, his eyes flashing as their gazes met – and he immediately shut his eyes and turned away, as if met with a pure, divine presence. A soft cry stuttered from his throat, and he knew then that it was almost over. His legs twitched and flinched, the right sweeping up to capture Celatus’ shoulder and side in its bend while the left fell away, heels pressed into the mattress and Celatus’ back. He gripped tighter at Celatus’ arm and head, and choked out as few words as possible

            “Cela– Celatus, I’m nearly – _nearly…”_

            The words fell away into gasping breaths and high whines of sensation, and though he lamented his inability to see Celatus from where his head was thrown back over the pillow, still he could not gain enough control over sensation to lift his eyes. Celatus pressed and caressed with his tongue, sucked in his cheeks, and held Vannus’ cock in his left hand, arm still gripped by honeyed fingers, while he swept his right palm over Vannus’ belly and side and chest, and back down along the outer edge of his thigh. He pressed his hand to the inner plane of Vannus’ knee, curled his thumb under the crease of the joint, and pulled up, and up, and up with his mouth. He was breathless, but his lungs made no complaint; aching, but muscles seemed mute; enraptured, enthralled, all life in him spared only to make Vannus moan his name in chokes and gasps and shouts, all while his mind paid no heed to the subjection.

            Then Vannus’ whole body flinched, his breath gasped out and in again with a whimper, then another, then another, little whines on every delayed exhale as he pulled closer Celatus’ arm and head and curled up and over almost onto his side. Celatus tried and failed to swallow all his release, and had to pull away, disentangle from Vannus’ knee, coughing, but still stroking Vannus through until his body went limp, and grew weaker with every breath, and he turned onto his side and collapsed there, with shoulders and ribs heaving, and limbs fallen in tangled heaps before him. His throat was hoarse, his lungs worked hard, and small noises of contentment and distress still escaped from his chest with every other harsh breath out.

            Celatus sat back on his knees, and thought on what he had done; but the mere sight of Vannus, worn out by pleasure, was enough to assuage every lurking thread of regret.

            “… Vannus?”

            Still panting, he raised one weak, heavy arm, and flapped his hand in a lazy gesture. “I’m busy,” he gasped, as his arm fell back. “You’ve killed me, I’m afraid. You’ve utterly finished me.”

            A slow smile spread its way across Celatus’ face, and he crawled closer so that he could loom over Vannus’ naked, exhausted form. Their skin touched in odd places: Celatus’ knee against the small of Vannus’ back, his other thigh against Vannus’ backside, his arm brushing shoulder and back, and his other hand, very deliberately, stroking Vannus’ forehead and arm. He let his fingertips fall to a perusal of Vannus’ mouth, but this only served to tug a low moan from the soldier, who lifted his chin and opened his eyes by a mere fraction to kiss him in reply. His lips were as pliant as his limbs, and Celatus turned him over onto his back while they remained attached, feather-light, by their mouths, until he could manoeuvre his own limbs so that his knees bracketed Vannus’ leg and his forearms pushed under the pillow beneath Vannus’ head.

            Two warm and damp hands came up to set shivering fingertips on Celatus’ waist, and his whole body shuddered without thought.

             _“O, me finis,”_ he whispered into Vannus’ mouth. _“Omnino, me, omnino necas.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (On the 24-25th of October, 69CE, Vitellius' forces suffered a massive defeat at the hands of the Vespasians at Bedriacum; the same place where Vitellius defeated Otho in April that year, inducing him to commit suicide to avoid further bloodshed.)
> 
> When Vannus tells Celatus that he's "not a _fellator_ ", he does mean a very specific thing. As has probably been made obvious, Roman sexual values were all placed upon the dichotomy of active/passive, penetrator/penetrated, strong/weak. In addition, however, they also had very specific words for specific acts, which were thought to define the kind of person who would perform them -- hence, specific names for people who _performed_ specific acts. So, a _fututor_ was someone (usually figured as a man) who penetrated a vagina; a _pathica_ was a woman who was penetrated in the anus; and a _fellator_ was a man who was penetrated in the mouth. It's pretty obvious that these categories would have been more slippery than the ideal even in their own time; but it still would've been the case that no one would dare to presume Celatus was a _fellator_ , because it's simply uncharacteristic for a rich, noble, imperious, respectable man. (Anyone interested in learning more is encouraged to find a copy of _Roman Sexualities_ , ed. Judith P. Hallett and Marilyn B. Skinner [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997].)
> 
> Additionally, yes, performing oral sex was considered a literally dirty act. The mouth was used to kiss family, friends and allies, and to be fucked in it, or use it for sex, was to defile it. Again, such ideals would have been more malleable in the actual experience of sexual Romans, which I've tried to show; but the cultural acceptance of fellatio as defilement, submission, or the work of prostitutes, would still linger.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin translations in mouseover text; smooth translation of Cicero in the end notes.

            Difficilis erat, dum Celatus Vanni collum ore ursit, legere.

            “Virtutum amicitia adiutrix a natura data est,” risit, “non vitiorum comes, ut, quo– quoniam _– Celate!”_

            “Locum fini…”

            Vannus torsit, et perrexit.

            “Ut, quoniam solitaria non posset virtus, ad ea quae summa sunt, pervenire; coniuncta et consociata cum altera perveniret.”

            Celatus Vannum ad finem adventurum scivit, et circum movere ad laterem incepi.

            “Quae si quos inter societas aut est – aut _fuit –_ aut _futura est –”_ Vannus clamavit, “eorum est habendus ad _summum_ naturae bonum, optimus beatissimusque comitatus!”

            Statim, Vannus voluminem iactavit, et vertit ut Celatum basiaret, et uterque riserunt dum in cubilem deciderunt.

            “Et?” Vannus dixit. “Ego tui virtutum adiutor sum?”

            “Sic, sic,” Celatus adrisit; sed tum risus defloruit. “Es,” dixit. “Tu es.”

            Vannus, eum incumbens, capitem inclinavit.

            “Tu unus,” Celatus institit, “fidem… _virtuti_ meae – habes. _Adiutole.”_

            Vannus iugulum momordit, sed non reclamavit.

 

            Later, under the moon, Celatus pressed Vannus’ spine to a column in the peristyle, and kissed his open mouth as their bodies and breaths warmed the cold night air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cicero, _De Amicitia_ , 83  
> (Latin text from [Perseus](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0040%3Asection%3D83), translation by myself with help from Michael Grant [Penguin: 1971])  
> "Friendship, the helper of virtue, was given by nature not as the companion of vices; as -- since virtue cannot alone reach those things which are highest -- she reaches them agreeing and united with another. And if such in the course of fellowship either is, or was, or will be, it is to be considered of them that they aim towards the highest good of nature, and are the best and happiest company."
> 
> Also 'adiutole' is a diminutive of 'adiutor' which I completely made up, so it's probably inaccurate. Sorry.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin translations in mouseover text.

            They were asleep when it began.

            There was no immediate crash – no noise to wake them – only the insipid, creeping, acrid smell of smoke, which drifted into the bedroom and caused Vannus to wake, frowning. He took a breath; then sniffed the air once, and twice; then pushed himself up on one elbow, dislodging Celatus’ loose grip around his body, and inhaled deep.

             _“Merdam,”_ he muttered,  “merdam. _Ignem. Celate, ignem! INCENDIUM!”_

            Even as Celatus groaned heavily into wakefulness, Vannus was leaping from the bed, and rushing out into the atrium, unbelted and blinking. The entire front of the building was smoking, red embers and flame glowing behind the windows in the darkened night.

             _“INCENDIUM!”_ Vannus shouted, as he backtracked, with horror on his face, towards the peristyle, and the slaves’ quarters. _“FUGITE!_ FUGITE!”

            Already, when he reached their rooms, there were a few men and women dashing into the courtyard and staring, with confusion or fear, towards where the crackle of the fire had begun to spread, and grow, and grumble its displeasure.

            “The back door!” one of the slaves was saying – a recent acquisition to the household, Vannus remembered, with skin the colour of loam and a fierce efficiency in her eyes. She marched up to him, crying: _“Domine,_ the back door, through the gardens!”

            “Shifra, you lead the other slaves,” came Celatus’ voice, even as Vannus opened his mouth, hurrying up behind them. “Keep them in order, stop any panic. We’ll wake the others.”

            Shifra did not respond except to turn and start corralling the others, stopping those who were looking to flee through the atrium and pointing them towards the sprawling gardens that were walled in at the back of the villa. At the same time, Vannus and Celatus pushed through the straggling, fleeing people and into the corridor of slaves’ rooms, and hammered on every closed door with their fists, urging the sleeping inhabitants to wake, and rise, and flee. Vannus could see, from the corner of his eyes, that Celatus was counting, inspecting every slave who passed them and ticking their names off on some mental list; and so it was that, upon the upper storey of the house, they ran into each other once more, while the hallway echoed with the last, retreating footsteps and the roar of the spreading fire.

            “That’s all of them,” Celatus panted, then coughed, and peered out through one of the windows over the peristyle, to the front of the house. All at once, the gluttonous fire was turned by the wind to the roof, and the flames burst through, heat raging into the sky. The blaze lit up the night and the smoke rose in thick, heavy clouds. “Minerva, we must go.”

            “Mithras and Mars…” Vannus muttered, as they dashed back down the steps; but when Celatus moved to pull him towards the back of the house, Vannus snatched his arm away with a short, sharp “Wait!”, and stumbled and tripped backwards, only just gaining his feet at he cried: “The penates!”

            “Vannus, you _can’t!”_ Celatus shouted, beginning to follow – but Vannus turned, and shoved him back.

            “Go, follow the others,” he instructed, “I’ll be right behind you.”

            “Vannus –”

            “ _Go!”_

            Already, he was running, dashing back across the courtyard and towards the fire. However much Celatus wanted to follow, he knew that it was dangerous; that he was needed elsewhere; that Vannus would be furious if he followed; and so he fled, after the last of the slaves.

            In the meantime, Vannus was darting between the flames and the door to the bedroom, when already the space between them was dangerously slim. He slipped into the room and embarked on an uncomfortably familiar task: to toss penates and sword and knives upon the bed, with a few scant supplies of clothes and a pair of boots for them both, and roll it all up in the woollen blanket, then secure the lot with a belt and flee. As he pushed the door open again, the flames burst forth, close enough now to singe his hair and flick at his shoulder and side, so that Vannus shifted his bundle over the further shoulder and breathed through the collar of his tunic, held up to his mouth and nose. He hissed and cried out as the flames tried to catch at him; but moments later, had reached the relative safety of the peristyle, and was dropping his tunic, coughs burning at his throat, and running out towards the gardens behind the others.

            Celatus was waiting for him by the gate, beyond the exquisite, doomed trellises and walks, with an expression which morphed from fear to horror when Vannus came into his sight.

            “What has Vulcan done to you?” he cried, as he darted forward even as Vannus reached him and hurried past.

            “Out, get out!” he snapped, and pushed Celatus before him, through the gate and into the fields beyond. The slaves had formed a huddling group in a little ditch through which a slow creek rippled, its edges alternatively lit up by the moon and fire, and shaded by the boughs of an old cypress tree; so it was to there that Celatus and Vannus ran. The stablehands had done their jobs: they held on to the ropes of six skittish, whining horses, one of whom was still lashed to a cart.

            “Well done,” Vannus panted as they reached them. He gingerly dropped his bundle to the dew-dropped earth, and looked about them. His eyes found his friend’s, lit up by rising flames in the dark night. “Celatus?

            “That’s everyone,” he sighed, then he, too, looked around at the crowd. “Yes?”

            Shifra came forth, with a lit oil lamp in hand, and gave a stern, jerking nod. “Not a single one missing,” she said. “If it weren’t for your warnings, we may not have made it out all alive.”

            “We’ll have to find somewhere to go,” Vannus mused, and glanced back up at Celatus. “Back to Rome?”

            “Yes,” Celatus nodded.

            “And us?” said Shifra.

            “Sollemnis will take care of you.” Celatus’ eyes roamed over the little, shuddering crowd. Twenty-three slaves were gathered there, all trained with animals, bathing, cleaning, cooking, gardening, fetching water and food. “No doubt you’ll be relocated to other villas. I’ll see to it that any family or friends stay together.”

            Shifra, however, was no longer listening. Her brows had contracted, and she was staring at Vannus; not at his face, but just below it, and to one side.

            “That needs tending,” she said with a nod, and incurring a frown in the man she addressed.

            “What?”

            Upon his right, Celatus glanced down, and his eyes grew pale and wide. He reached out with one hand as Shifra raised the lamp, and held his long, thin fingers – paler even than usual – over the sleeve of Vannus’ tunic, just hovering by his skin without touch. Vannus looked down – and saw the skin of his shoulder and upper arm, and presumably even his back, turned red and blistered, flaking apart in places, and glistening, as if it had melted under the touch of the flames. His tunic was singed and tattered, and stuck to his mottled skin with unhealthy greed. Behind them, a muffled crash sounded, as wood gave way, and plaster became ash, and stone and tile tumbled, blackened, to the ground.

            “Oh,” said Vannus. “That is going to hurt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I'm a narcissistic sap, I'm going to explain the _Aeneid_ references.  
>  An old cypress tree is the rendesvous for Aeneas and his servants when fleeing Troy; and, though technically Aeneas carries his father who carries the penates, Vannus is still being just a little Aeneic in his efforts. Finally, one line is paraphrased from _Aeneid_ II.758-9: "all at once, the gluttonous fire was turned by the wind to the roof, and the flames burst through, heat raging into the sky" ("ilicet ignis edax summa ad fastigia vento / voluitur; exsuperant flammae, furit aestus ad auras."; text from [The Latin Library](http://thelatinlibrary.com/vergil/aen2.shtml), translated by me).


End file.
